Spellbreaker (33 page)

“My Lady Warden,” Ellen said casually, “the druid here and I were just discussing some of the techniques the Lord Warden's party has used to convert neodemons. They might be of use to us. May I finish our conversation before joining you?”

At first, Francesca thought this was a ploy to get out of having to deal with Lolo. But then Francesca realized Ellen had spoken with unusual warmth. She was also standing uncharacteristically close to the druid.

Francesca looked at the man, who bowed his head respectfully. The red hair and freckles looked good on his boyish face.

Then Francesca understood. She was mildly surprised. But what was the harm? “Yes, that is a good idea, Magistra. In fact, would you and the druid please write up a brief comparison of our methods so that we might give them to the rest of our party?”

Ellen smiled conspiratorially. “Of course, Lady Warden.”

Francesca was about to say more but then she looked past Ellen and Rory to Nicodemus. He was looking up at her with the most peculiar expression, his mouth flat with something like fear. As she watched, he pointedly looked at Rory, then Ellen, then back to her. Very slightly, he shook his head.

Francesca fought the urge to frown. Whatever on earth was Nicodemus trying to tell her? Behind her husband, his Lornish highsmith was staring with great amusement at Rory and Ellen. Did the druid have some other woman? Francesca doubted it; she would have remembered Nicodemus mentioning that.

She looked back at Ellen and Rory, who both seemed happy in each other's company. Surely there was no harm in letting them flirt. “Yes, Magistra,” Francesca said, “please do come find me after you have a thorough discussion.”

Ellen nodded but farther down the stairs Nicodemus shook his head, now with pronounced vehemence. Beside him, the Lornish highsmith looked as if he might start laughing. How strange they both were being.

“I will see you soon, husband,” she said and then walked up the rest of the stairs, all the time wondering what Nicodemus could possibly have against Rory flirting with an intelligent and pretty woman.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Francesca waited on the balcony as the shark god circled. Holokai, she reminded herself, that was his name. In his human incarnation, he was pretending to inspect the rooms below her daughter's quarters for possible threats. He moved closer with each pass, circling.

Ignoring him, Francesca put aside her anxieties about Leandra. She studied the blue tropical sky. The balcony, which was on the second floor of the Floating Palace, presently faced the tunnel to Chandralu and the blocky monastery. The dark staircase cut switchbacks as it climbed the crater's inner slope to the volcano's peak.

Behind her, bare feet slapped against wooden planks. Francesca turned to see that Holokai had finally stepped out onto the balcony. Staring with dark eyes, he stopped five feet away from her. He was about to speak when she held up a warning finger. From her belt purse she pulled a single sheet of paper and peeled from it a subrosa spell. With a wrist flick, she cast the spell above them where it bloomed into a wide cage of sound-deadening petals of silvery Magnus prose. When it completed, Francesca nodded. “You can speak now. Not even the Trimuril can overhear us.”

The shark god was glaring at her. “Where's my son?”

Francesca smiled politely. “Are you addressing me?”

His dark eyes widened. “You see anyone else out here, hey?”

Francesca looked him up and down.

“Where's my son?”

She turned away. “Leave,” she said flatly. “I don't deal with petty gods who don't know their place.”

A spasm of fury scurried across his face. “Don't you—” His voice died as she stepped toward him.

“Listen carefully, you oversized mackerel, maybe you never came across anything in the ocean to frighten you, maybe hunting neodemons with my daughter never challenged you, but now you are trifling with forces that will chew you into chum. You felt it when you swam under my boat last night. At sea, you knew how much danger you were in. That's why you swam away then and why you will scurry away now.”

He blinked at her, taken aback. Away from his element, the shark god was no match for her. That was true. But she was exaggerating. At sea, she had foreseen that Holokai was one of the few souls who could kill her in the coming days. Of course, he didn't need to know that.

The shark god blinked again, pulled his lips back slightly. “You wanted this meeting. And if you have my—”

“I invited you here,” Francesca interrupted to make sure he never felt in control, “to discuss the future of your son. That was before I knew you couldn't match wits against a brain-damaged goat. So you're going to walk away from me before I tear you a fresh set of gills, and you're going to forget that you ever had a son because you're clearly too God-of-god's damned stupid to raise one.” She took another step forward.

The shark god reflexively stepped back, but again his lips pulled back. “Bit hypocritical for you to lecture anyone about bringing up a child, hey Francesca? Maybe I'll go ask Lea what she thinks—”

Francesca laughed. “Excellent idea, tell Leandra. How do you think she'll react to learning you came to talk to me without her knowledge?”

Another spasm of fury moved across the shark god's face.

“Maybe I should tell her you slipped away to meet me?”

Holokai's eyes started to blacken.

Francesca knew better than to back down. She showed her own teeth and stepped forward again. “That's right, guppy. You want to solve it that way, you just go right ahead.”

Again the shark god blinked, took another step back. His eyes whitened.

Francesca nodded. “Good. Do you want to try this again?”

He stared at her for a long moment, and then said, “For the sake of my son.”

She only watched him coldly.

At last, and with some difficulty, he said, “Lady Warden, I am here because of your … invitation.”

“Yes, thank you for coming, honored sea god. I wish to discuss the issue of your son.”

“I didn't know I was a father. Are you sure you have my son?”

Francesca gestured down to the lake. The shark god turned and saw a small floating pavilion, on the edges of which sat Kenna, her white druid robes hiked up to her knees and her pale legs dangling in the water. She was looking up toward the balcony. A few feet away, her brother was dogpaddling next to Lolo. The childish god was smiling and then began to splash Tam, who pretended to be shocked. This precipitated more smiling, splashing.

The shark god shifted his feet but did not change his expression. “He's mine? Are we sure?”

Francesca recognized the desire in the question. “He's happy in this lake's fresh water, but when I dropped him into ocean, he grew fins and serrated teeth. And perhaps you will want to see this.” She raised her hand.

Down on the floating pavilion, Kenna returned the gesture and then touched the wooden plank beside her. A blue glow grew where her finger touched wood. A small part of the pavilion broke off to float on its own. The raft sprouted lily pads across the water and then grew a bud that opened into a lotus blossom.

Lolo pointed at the druidic bloom, his eyes wide. With his chubby arms he paddled over to the druidic construct. With difficulty he tried to haul himself up onto it. Tam swam behind him, and gave him a slight push. As Lolo climbed onto the lotus spell, the sun shone on his back and the rows of scars that formed a shark bite. They had come from the uterus of the child's poor mother. Holokai drew in a sharp breath.

“His mother was a devotee in the Pillow House,” Francesca said.

“But that was only a few days ago.”

“These things happen with demigods. Some are born old and grow young. Some start life with adult minds. In Lolo's case—”

“Lolo? You named my son ‘crazy?'”

“It is what the children of the orphanage named him. The orphanage you abandoned him to.”

“I didn't abandon him; I didn't even know about him! I didn't…” His eyes narrowed and he seemed to become thoughtful. “He must be why I was feeling so strong a few days before Lea took us to see the smuggler. I thought those in my cult had become more prayerful … but actually I had fulfilled the requisite of providing the son they had been praying for.”

Leandra didn't know what he was talking about and didn't care. “Lolo's gestation was particularly rapid,” she said sternly to get his attention. “His nature filled his mother's uterus with shark's teeth that cut into his back. She bled to death after giving birth to him. He knows this, on some level, and it terrifies him.”

Holokai's mouth bent downward in pain. “Not his fault.”

“No, it's yours.”

The shark god glared at her but said nothing.

“Lolo has been aging two years a day. You've abandoned him for the first six years of his life. Vital years. Thank the God-of-gods someone on the Floating City arranged for him to be placed into the orphanage.”

“That would be one of the priests my devotees have paid off to watch out for any possible child of mine,” Holokai growled. “Seems he never counted on things developing so quickly. But still, he'll have to answer to me why he didn't get a message to me faster.”

“You have done this to other woman?”

The shark god looked back to Lolo and did not answer.

“Disgusting,” Leandra sneered. “You were going to do that to my daughter.”

He shook his head. “She said she wasn't in any danger of having a baby.”

“But you knew about the danger to the other women?”

He flared his nostrils. “It's happened very rarely before. Most often, no child is produced or the pregnancy stops on its own.”

“And you hid from Lea the few women whose bodies were filled with shark teeth?”

“It's in my requisites. It's nothing I can help.”

“No, I don't suppose you can. How is it the Trimuril hasn't found a way to stop your devotees from praying for such a gruesome thing?”

He didn't respond.

“So that's how you're written: The demigod son your devotees pray for over anything else?”

Again he glared at her.

“This time silence won't get you out of answering. Before we can talk about Lolo's future, I need to know if you will put him before Leandra.”

“She knows I must.”

“But she doesn't yet know you have a son. And we will keep it that way until I am satisfied that you can be trusted with Lolo.”

“You have no right.”

“That child has known me for what is a year of his life. My officers and I are already more of a family to him than anyone else. Creator in heaven, in five days he's going to be an adolescent shark god. Do you have even the slightest idea of the trouble he could get himself into?”

“You still have no right!”

“I have a right to protect my daughter.”

Holokai narrowed his eyes. “She can protect herself.”

“If that's so, then you'll have your son on your island before you know it.”

The shark god rolled his shoulders, let out a breath as if he were considering something.

“This will be easier for everyone, including you and your son, if you realize you've been broken to my will. You're a god of blood. You know when you've lost a fight. You're mine now.”

Silence.

“You say it or I send you back to my daughter and I keep your son.”

“Then I'm yours.”

“Good. So, I need to know what Leandra was hiding in the throne room today.”

“What she was hiding?”

“Don't make me think you're any dumber because I already think you'd need instructions on how to drool. Lea
needed
to get back to the city tonight. She induced a disease flare to keep the Trimuril from finding out why. It can't be simply to investigate the thugs attacking petty deities.”

“It's not.”

“Well then, why?”

“If I am going to do this for you, I need to know what I'm getting into. There're things I need to know before I go back to Lea.”

“Such as?”

“Such as what happened fourteen years ago in Port Mercy? Why does Lea hate you so much?”

“Fair enough. You should know how to keep things from getting worse between Lea and me. But first, tell me why does she need to go back to Chandralu today? Does she know who's behind the attacks on petty deities? Is it the empire or the Cult of the Undivided Society? Or is it some criminal organization?”

Holokai was silent for a moment. Then he looked back toward Lolo. The boyish god was standing on the raft and periodically dodging Tam, who was trying to tickle him. At last, Holokai said, “She knows it's not the Undivided Society.”

Francesca frowned. “How?”

“Because,” Holokai said with a sigh, “the Cult of the Undivided Society worships Leandra.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Leandra looked with trepidation into the chamber pot. Her gut clenched when she saw that her urine was tea-dark and foamy.

This flare was going to be a horror.

Her joints ached, a rash bloomed across her cheeks, fatigue weighed on her like a wet blanket, and now any deep breath flashed pain through her chest. This last symptom frightened her most. When she was eleven, a severe flare had produced the same pain. For hours, her mother had listened to her chest and thumped her back before deciding that her heart was surrounded by dangerous amounts of fluid. So Francesca had written a six-inch needlelike spell and then inserted it just below Leandra's sternum and pushed it up to her heart. After Francesca had drained the fluid, Leandra felt a weight removed from her chest. She had drawn in long, hungry breaths.

Ever since, Leandra had remembered her mother's tense expression as she had pressed the needle up into her chest. Leandra had associated that cold, focused expression with the unfairness of childhood disease. But now, she wondered what it had been like to be her mother. How horrible it must have been to hold that needle.